Sport Minister announces $900,000 in prize money for Insport football, netball

The Minister of Culture, Gender, Entertainment and Sport Olivia Grange has announced prize money totalling $900,000 for the top-four teams emerging from the Institute of Sports (Insports) 2023 primary schools football and netball competitions. The announcement was made on Thursday at the National Stadium as she launched the draw for the final round of these competitions.

“The winning schools in both the netball and football competitions will receive $200,000 each with the runners-up getting $125,000,” Grange said.

“The third-placed teams will collect $75,000 and $50,000 will go to the fourth-placed teams. In addition, the winning coaches will get gift vouchers of $10,000 each,” she added.

The competitions started with more than 200 schools and now there are 32 in football and 32 in netball.

The sport minister said the competitions are arguably the best of their kind anywhere in the English-speaking Caribbean. She said Insports will be one of the entities that the minister of sport and community development of Trinidad and Tobago, Shamfa Cudjoe, will meet with during a study tour by the minister and her delegation in Jamaica from January 22 to 28.

“The study tour was agreed on during bilateral discussions held in August of last year, between Prime Minister Andrew Holness and Keith Rowley, prime minister of Trinidad and Tobago.

“Insports, in satisfying its mandate, enables us to bring to the fore in a competitive environment the best young talent from across Jamaica.

“I had made a proposal sometime ago that the best-emerging talents from the Insport national primary school football and netball competitions be assembled for a one-day clinic and maybe an exhibition game after which the technical persons from both the Jamaica Football Federation and Netball Jamaica would assess them.

“Insport Ambassadors Ian ‘Pepe’ Goodison and Oberon Pitterson-Nattie should lead this charge. This would be similar to an initiative that I had started with Jamaica Cricket Association and out of which I am happy and excited to say that we identified four women cricketers from the Insport island-wide cricket search, who made the national Under-19 team,” Grange said.

She added, “I am heartened by the teamwork and collaboration between Insport and the sporting associations. I know that we are all very happy to welcome back the competitions after a two-year absence owing to the COVID-19 pandemic.”

Minister Grange also made a presentation of hurdles to the 2019 winners of the track and field competitions in the three regions, Eastern, Central and Western. The respective winners were St Richard’s Primary, Spanish Town Primary and Black River Primary.